The Currency of Happiness

What does it actually cost to keep a promise you made on your wedding day, years after everyone stopped expecting you to?

When Andrew and Emily got married, Emily had a goal: financially free by 23, done working for money on her own terms. Her 23rd birthday came and went, and the dream got quieter. Watching that happen did something to Andrew he didn't have words for at the time, so he made a decision. He was going to retire his wife.

They had just paid off $70,000 in debt. Nobody handed them anything, and they didn't want anyone to. So they lived beneath their means for years: no restaurants, secondhand clothes, side hustles, delivering food after full days at the bank, all while raising a family. Slowly it turned into a down payment on a house with a legal basement suite, then another house, then another, until Emily's salary became optional instead of necessary.

In this episode, Andrew walks through the full story: the MLM years that taught them real financial principles even when the business model wasn't right for them, the season of watching Emily's dream feel like it was slipping away, the exact strategy they used to build income outside a paycheck, and the day he surprised her with a limousine, her parents, their kids, and a sledgehammer. He also asks every husband listening a direct question: what did you promise her, and are you still keeping it?

🔹 THE PROMISE - What Andrew committed to privately, without telling Emily how serious he was
🔹 THE STRATEGY - How a basement suite rental became the first proof the plan was working
🔹 THE RETIREMENT DAY - The limousine, the alarm clock, and the sledgehammer that said "freedom"
🔹 THE QUESTION FOR HUSBANDS - What dream is your person carrying that you haven't taken seriously enough?

This isn't a story about money. It's a story about a promise, and what it costs to actually keep it.

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 – Emily's goal: financially free by 23
01:41 – What the MLM years actually taught them
02:24 – The private promise: retiring Emily
03:45 – The house with the basement suite
04:08 – Buying more houses and letting compounding work
05:04 – Planning retirement day
06:17 – The limousine, the flowers, and the parking lot
06:59 – The sledgehammer and the alarm clock
07:10 – Why this was never really about money
09:50 – A question for every husband listening

Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Free Ultimate Goal Setting Framework → thecurrencyofhappiness.com

Subscribe on YouTube → youtube.com/@thecurrencyofhappiness

Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"

If this episode hit home, share it with one person. Every share helps build what comes next.

#FinancialFreedom #Marriage #RealEstateInvesting #Debt FreeJourney #WeddingVows #PassiveIncome #Husbands #FinancialIndependence #LifeGoals #TheCurrencyOfHappiness #Podcast #LifeOfMeaning #EarlyRetirement #RealEstate #Fatherhood

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Most people don't feel stuck with money because they're lazy. They feel stuck because they're overwhelmed and afraid of making the wrong move.

Ryan Gonce is the founder of Bridgeline Wealth Strategies, a financial planner who has spent his career helping people build a plan instead of guessing their way through money. Ryan started investing at age 10 under his uncle's direction, and years later paid off $140,000 of debt with his wife Kathy before launching the career that grew out of that struggle.

In this episode, Ryan breaks down why the most common thread among people who are winning with money isn't income, it's that they don't overspend. He explains the pay yourself first framework, why setting up separate bank accounts removes the need to track every purchase, and why most fights about money aren't really about the money at all, they're about the order it leaves your account. We also get into pensions and whether they're actually as secure as people assume, the difference between a market fluctuation and a real loss, how much the average person actually needs saved for retirement by generation, and why people who work with a financial planner tend to retire three times wealthier than those who don't.

🔹 THE ORDER OF MONEY — Give, save, then live, and why this order prevents most financial fights
🔹 THE HOUSEKEEPER STORY — A budgeting negotiation between Ryan and his wife that says more about money than any spreadsheet could
🔹 THE DEBT PAYOFF — Seven years, $140,000, and the phone call that changed everything
🔹 CORE PLUS EXPLORE — Ryan's philosophy for how much risk is actually appropriate in your portfolio

This isn't about becoming a finance expert. It's about building a plan so your money stops being the thing you fight about and starts being the thing that gives you peace.

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 – Why people feel stuck with money
01:22 – What the average person coming in for help is feeling
02:53 – The one common thread among people doing well financially
07:00 – Getting a budget and paying yourself first
09:28 – The housekeeper negotiation
13:58 – Watching debt actually get paid off
18:05 – How Ryan's financial planning career started
19:38 – How much to actually be investing
23:04 – Why systems create peace in a marriage
26:26 – Is your pension actually safe?
32:18 – Silver, gold, crypto, and how much risk to take
36:26 – How much money you actually need for retirement
41:36 – What happens after you hit a financial goal
46:56 – Time in the market versus timing the market
48:23 – What happiness looks like to Ryan

Connect with Ryan Gonce:
Website → bridgelinewealth.ca

Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Free Ultimate Goal Setting Framework → thecurrencyofhappiness.com

Subscribe on YouTube → youtube.com/@thecurrencyofhappiness

Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"

If this episode hit home, share it with one person. Every share helps build what comes next.

#PersonalFinance #FinancialPlanning #DebtFree #MoneyManagement #Budgeting #WealthBuilding #RetirementPlanning #FinancialFreedom #MoneyMindset #TheCurrencyOfHappiness #Podcast #LifeOfMeaning

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What if the thing falling apart in front of you right now is actually what saves you?

In November 1915, Ernest Shackleton stood on the Antarctic ice and watched his ship, the Endurance, get crushed and swallowed by the frozen sea. He had 27 men with him, over a thousand miles from any other human being, no radio, no rescue coming. The mission he'd spent years planning, the first overland crossing of Antarctica, was over before it began. All he said was: "Ship and stores have gone, so now we'll go home."

I open this episode with my own version of that moment: the biggest real estate deal of my life, a $2 million apartment building, falling apart one hour before closing. It took me a year to understand why that collapse actually protected me. Shackleton's men waited almost as long to understand the same thing about their own disaster.

In this episode, I walk through what happened after that ship went down, and why it might be the greatest leadership story in history that nobody remembers correctly:

🔹 THE COLLAPSE — Why Shackleton threw a party the night his plan fell apart, and what he understood about morale that most leaders never figure out
🔹 THE VOYAGE — 16 days in an open lifeboat, 800 miles across the most violent ocean on Earth, and a 36-hour climb over mountains no one had ever crossed
🔹 THE REDEFINITION — Why Harvard Business School studies a man who never completed his mission, and what that says about how we measure success

This isn't a story about achieving the goal. It's about what you do when the goal is gone and people are still watching to see if they can follow you.

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 – The ship goes down
— My $2 million deal and the year it took to understand why it fell apart
— Who Shackleton was before the Endurance
— Patience Camp: 4 months adrift on the ice
— The James Caird: 800 miles across the Drake Passage
— Why Shackleton is ranked above leaders who actually finished what they started
— This week's question: who's on your ice, and are you still leading them?

If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.

#Shackleton #Leadership #Resilience #Endurance #PersonalGrowth #Antarctica #TheCurrencyOfHappiness

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What do you do when life hands you a season you never signed up for?

Steve Moser was a single father raising two toddlers alone, working midnight shifts so he could spend his days with his kids. No plan beyond the next week. No mother figure in the house. Just survival, grocery runs that drew judgmental looks, and a quiet decision to keep showing up.

A decade later, Steve is married, has adopted three children, runs a successful business, and describes his life as an abundance he couldn't have predicted if you'd told him back then. In this episode, we talk about what actually changed and why joy, in his words, was never about circumstances being easier. It was a choice he had to keep making.

🔹 CHOOSING JOY IN THE HARD SEASONS — Why Steve separates joy from happiness, and what that distinction meant while working nights and solo parenting two toddlers
🔹 A GLOBAL WAKE-UP CALL — Time spent in Thailand, Jordan, the West Bank, and Baghdad, and how witnessing extreme poverty and conflict reshaped his perspective on his own struggles
🔹 REBUILDING THROUGH COMMUNITY — How committing to a local church, mowing a lawn when he had nothing else to offer, and his father's humility about his own parenting mistakes became the turning point
🔹 THE LEAP INTO BUSINESS — Getting laid off, a government adjudicator telling him his side hustle was too well run to collect benefits, and the partnership that turned into the business he runs today

This is a conversation about fatherhood, faith, and what it actually looks like to choose joy when life doesn't go according to plan.

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 – Choosing joy when life gets harder
— Becoming a solo father overnight
— The stigma of being a single dad
— His father's humility and what it taught him about parenting
— What Thailand, Jordan, the West Bank, and Baghdad taught him about perspective
— The church, the lawn mower, and finding his value
— Getting laid off and the call that pushed him into business
— Rapid fire: the book, the quote, and his definition of happiness

Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Free Ultimate Goal Setting Framework → thecurrencyofhappiness.com

Subscribe on YouTube → youtube.com/@thecurrencyofhappiness

Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"

If this episode hit home, share it with one person. Every share helps build what comes next.

#ChoosingJoy #SingleDad #Fatherhood #Faith #Entrepreneurship #Adoption #Resilience #TheCurrencyOfHappiness

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What if the way you look at a rundown house is the same way you should be looking at people?

While Emily was in labor with their third child, Andrew got a text from his realtor: a property that fit exactly what he was looking for. He ran the numbers in his head, turned to his wife between contractions, and asked if she was okay putting in an offer. She said yes. They bought the house sight unseen. When Andrew finally walked through the front door days later, he found a stained carpet, layers of wallpaper stacked like sediment, a bathtub straight out of 1974, and a basement that needed serious work. Most buyers would have seen a problem. Andrew saw what it could become.

In this episode, Andrew breaks down the BRRRR method (buy, renovate, rent, refinance, repeat) not as a real estate strategy but as a philosophy he now applies to every part of his life, including the weekly coaching sessions he runs with his team. He explains why most people never reach their potential because they've absorbed a story about themselves that underestimates them, why cutting corners always costs more later, and why the messy middle of any renovation, whether it's a house or a person, isn't a sign something went wrong. It's just what growth looks like from the inside.

🔹 THE PHONE CALL — Buying a house sight unseen while Emily was in active labor
🔹 THE WALKTHROUGH — What Andrew found behind the front door, and why he loved it anyway
🔹 THE FIVE STAGES — Buy, renovate, rent, refinance, repeat, and what each one means for people
🔹 THE QUESTION — What in your life have you been walking past because all you can see are the surface problems?

This isn't a real estate episode. It's a challenge to stop judging what something is right now, and start asking what it's capable of becoming.

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 – The phone call during labor
1:00 – Buying the house sight unseen
1:07 – What was actually behind the front door
2:01 – Why Andrew saw potential instead of problems
2:23 – What the BRRRR method really means
3:09 – The same eye applied to coaching his team
3:44 – Why people underestimate their own potential
4:47 – Quick wins versus compound value
6:00 – Buy: training your eye to see past the surface
6:56 – Renovate: why the middle always looks worse
7:34 – Rent: the return reflects the quality of the work
8:09 – Refinance: capturing the value that was already there
8:38 – Repeat: why consistency turns a moment into a legacy
9:59 – The question to sit with

If this episode made you think differently about someone in your life, share it with them.

Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Free Ultimate Goal Setting Framework → thecurrencyofhappiness.com

Subscribe on YouTube → youtube.com/@thecurrencyofhappiness

Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"

If this episode hit home, share it with one person. Every share helps build what comes next.

#RealEstateInvesting #BRRRRMethod #Leadership #PersonalGrowth #Coaching #PropertyInvesting #SeeThePotential #GrowthMindset #TheCurrencyOfHappiness #LifeOfMeaning

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More kids are anxious, overwhelmed, and struggling than ever before. What if the real issue isn't just what's happening to our kids, but what's happening around them?

Dr. Kenechukwu Ezeibe, known as Dr. Kenny, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who has spent the last decade working with kids, teens, and families in Red Deer. In this conversation, he breaks down what it actually means to be a good parent, starting with a question most people never stop to ask: are parents even necessary, and what does nurturing a child's potential really require?

Dr. Kenny walks through the role grandparents and community play in raising resilient kids, why some children start tuning out their parents as early as age five (not just the teenage years), and how to tell if your child has been exposed to something they shouldn't have. He gets specific about the hardest conversations parents avoid, including when to introduce technology and social media, how to talk to kids about sex before a friend or a screen does it for you, and why he is personally cautious about kids and AI after hearing what one chatbot was willing to answer. He also opens up about the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence in Red Deer, the one stop facility where kids who have experienced abuse can meet with a psychiatrist, a therapist, and police in a single visit, and why a simple treasure chest in that building says more about hope than almost anything else in it.

🔹 THE BLANK CANVAS — Why Dr. Kenny believes every child is born with "preloadings," and how parents can identify them early
🔹 THE AGE THEY STOP LISTENING — Why it can start as young as five, and what to do about it
🔹 THE SCREEN TALK — When to introduce phones, social media, and AI, and the answer a chatbot gave that alarmed him
🔹 THE TREASURE CHEST — Inside the Red Deer centre built for kids who have experienced abuse, and why it inspired this episode's location

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 – What makes a good parent
02:00 – Every child is a blank canvas with preloadings
05:00 – Why two parents makes it easier, and support for single parents
06:30 – The role grandparents play in a child's success
09:00 – The age kids start tuning out their parents
12:30 – Breaking cycles from your own upbringing
16:00 – Discipline, boundaries, and avoiding both extremes
21:00 – Talking to kids about sex before someone else does
22:30 – Signs a child may have been exposed to something harmful
25:30 – The right age for phones, social media, and AI
32:00 – When to step in on someone else's parenting
34:00 – Inside the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence
39:00 – The treasure chest, and why it hit home
46:50 – Dr. Kenny's closing advice and what happiness means to him

Connect with Dr. Kenny:
🏥 Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence → albertahealthservices.ca (search "Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence Red Deer")

Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Free Ultimate Goal Setting Framework → thecurrencyofhappiness.com

Subscribe on YouTube → youtube.com/@thecurrencyofhappiness

Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"

If this episode hit home, share it with one person. Every share helps build what comes next.

#ChildPsychiatry #ParentingTips #MentalHealth #RedDeer #ChildDevelopment #ParentingAdvice #KidsAndTechnology #ScreenTime #ChildAbusePrevention #ResilientKids #FamilyMentalHealth #AlbertaHealthServices #TheCurrencyOfHappiness #Podcast #LifeOfMeaning

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What if the years that feel like nothing are actually building everything?

Years ago, Andrew spent a summer repairing windshields in a parking lot, sitting under a neon orange tent waiting for cars to pull in. To pass the slow hours, he started bringing books. Sales books, communication books, entrepreneurship books, whatever pulled at him that season. He didn't know it then, but that parking lot was the start of a reading habit that would eventually shape a business, a marriage, and this podcast.

In this episode, Andrew makes the case for reading as one of the highest leverage things you can do with your time, and he means it practically, not as a platitude. He walks through the book that helped save his marriage, Uprooting Anger, and the single question it gave him for handling frustration: would God be angered by this? He breaks down the real reasons people stop reading (time, guilt over unfinished books, and not knowing where to start), and the exact habits that actually work: keeping books everywhere, mixing audiobooks with physical copies, writing in the margins, and screenshotting timestamps that matter. He closes with seven book recommendations that changed how he thinks about relationships, ego, fatherhood, money, and creativity.

🔹 THE PARKING LOT - How a summer job with nothing to do turned into a lifelong habit
🔹 THE ANGER FRAMEWORK - The one question from Uprooting Anger that changed his marriage
🔹 THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE QUIT - Time, guilt, and not knowing where to start
🔹 THE SYSTEM - Practical habits for reading more without carving out extra hours
🔹 THE RECOMMENDATIONS - Seven books, from Dale Carnegie to science fiction, and what each one taught him

This isn't a list of books to feel guilty about not reading. It's a case for why reading consistently, even in small stolen minutes, compounds into a different life over time.

Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Free Ultimate Goal Setting Framework → thecurrencyofhappiness.com

Subscribe on YouTube → youtube.com/@thecurrencyofhappiness

Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"

If this episode hit home, share it with one person. Every share helps build what comes next.

#ReadingHabits #PersonalGrowth #BookRecommendations #SelfImprovement #Mindset #IntentionalLiving #ChristianPodcast #FaithAndFamily #MarriageAdvice #TheCurrencyOfHappiness

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What happens when the very thing you worked hardest to build starts breaking you?

Garret Cook is one of the top performing realtors in central Alberta and the founder of Elevate Collective, a team he built around collaboration over competition. From the outside, his life looked like proof that hustle works. On the inside, comedy and performance had become a trap: something he leaned on to connect with people that slowly turned into a standard he couldn't stop measuring himself against, at work, at church, at home.

In August 2018, that pressure caught up with him. Standing in line at a pizza restaurant with his wife and four kids, Garret collapsed without warning. He was rushed to the hospital, where his vitals came back completely normal. His body was healthy. His mind wasn't. An ER doctor told him he wasn't allowed to leave until he agreed to see a counselor, a moment Garret now calls one of the clearest times God has shown up in his life.

In this episode, Garret walks through what came next: the six months he sat in silence every Sunday while his family went to church without him, the moment on his kitchen floor when he felt God speak the words that became his tattoo, "faith through the fire," and the slow, uncomfortable process of unlearning an identity built entirely on performance. He also gets honest about a recent moment, just two months before this recording, when he hit every business goal he'd set and still felt completely empty, proof that this isn't a problem he solved once and moved past. We talk about the wife who protected him through a season she didn't fully understand, the kids he chose not to shield from his struggle, and why he believes counseling isn't a sign something is wrong with you, it's often the thing that finally shows you what's been wrong all along.

🔹 THE COLLAPSE — What happened in a pizza restaurant line that changed everything
🔹 THE ULTIMATUM — Why an ER doctor refused to let him leave without seeing a counselor
🔹 SIX MONTHS OF SILENCE — Sitting alone every Sunday while his family went to church without him
🔹 THE EMPTY GOAL — Hitting every target he set for himself and feeling nothing at all

This isn't a story about weakness. It's a story about a man who looked like he had it all together, and what it actually took to find peace underneath the performance.

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 - Why success can amplify what's already broken
- The comedy that became a trap
- August 2018: the collapse and the hospital
- The doctor's ultimatum on counseling
- Six months of silence every Sunday
- Faith through the fire: the moment on the kitchen floor
- Showing up as a dad without hiding the struggle
- Rebuilding identity away from performance
- Hitting every goal and still feeling empty
- What happiness actually looks like to Garret now

Connect with Garret Cook:
Website → garretcook.exprealty.com
Instagram → instagram.com/garret_e_cook
Facebook → facebook.com/GarretCookEXP

Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Free Ultimate Goal Setting Framework → thecurrencyofhappiness.com

Subscribe on YouTube → youtube.com/@thecurrencyofhappiness

Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"

If this episode hit home, share it with one person. Every share helps build what comes next.

#MentalHealth #Anxiety #HustleCulture #RealEstate #FaithAndMentalHealth #Counseling #Burnout #Fatherhood #Marriage #Identity #TheCurrencyOfHappiness #Podcast

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What actually changes when a couple decides they're done carrying debt, and how do you make that decision stick past the first hard month?

Andrew and Emily carried $60,000 in debt early in their marriage. It didn't happen from one bad decision. It built up the normal way: a student loan, a car payment, a line of credit that was supposed to be temporary, a credit card that slowly became routine. They were paying the bills and making the minimum payments. Technically fine. Emotionally exhausted. Every unexpected expense felt like a threat, and somewhere along the way Andrew started believing that pressure was just what adulthood felt like.

In this episode, Andrew breaks down exactly what changed, and what didn't. The decision to get out of debt wasn't the part that paid off a single dollar. What mattered was the system that came after it: getting honest about every balance and interest rate, treating payoff as the priority of that season instead of a side project, choosing one strategy and sticking with it, and automating everything so the plan didn't depend on motivation. Seven months later, the last payment cleared, and what came with it wasn't just relief. It was confidence that carried into how they save, invest, and plan today.

🔹 THE NUMBER - Why $60,000 built up quietly instead of all at once
🔹 THE DECISION - The line between "let's try harder" and "we're done carrying this"
🔹 THE SYSTEM - Clarity, one strategy, and automation that removed emotion from the process
🔹 THE SHIFT - What changed internally once the balances started dropping
🔹 THE REAL QUESTION - Not how fast can I do this, but what needs to change so it actually sticks

This isn't a story about intensity. It's a story about alignment, and what it takes to build margin instead of just surviving the month.

#DebtFree #DebtPayoff #PersonalFinance #MoneyMindset #FinancialFreedom #BudgetingTips #MarriageAndMoney #TheCurrencyOfHappiness

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What if the thing you call "church hurt" actually has nothing to do with the church at all?

Pastor Jachin Mullen leads Home Church, a multi site congregation with locations across Canada and roughly 110 more sites spread across 14 countries. He and his wife Becca oversee a community built on the phrase "everyone needs Jesus, everyone needs a home," and in this conversation he opens up about what it actually takes to lead with integrity when trust in leadership, spiritual and otherwise, is at an all time low.

In this episode, Pastor Jachin walks through why he believes there's a renewed spiritual hunger showing up mostly in young people with no church background, the safeguards he's built into his own life to guard against moral failure, and the difference between real church hurt and simple people hurt getting mislabeled. We also get into covenant relationships, what genuine reconciliation looks like after a falling out, and why he thinks cancel culture has made its way into families in a way that runs completely opposite to the gospel.

🔹 SPIRITUAL HUNGER — Why young people with no faith background are the ones showing up and asking the deepest questions
🔹 INTEGRITY — The daily safeguards Pastor Jachin uses to protect his faith and his family
🔹 CHURCH HURT — Why most of what gets called church hurt is actually unresolved people hurt
🔹 COVENANT — What it means to walk through life in real covenant relationship with others
🔹 RECONCILIATION — How to come back after a falling out, and why waiting is often the hardest part

By the end, you'll walk away with a clearer picture of what it means to build a genuine, transformed life instead of a divided one.

⏱️ What's Inside:
00:00 – Where does today's spiritual hunger come from?
04:16 – Leading with integrity when trust in leadership is low
08:39 – The safeguards that protect against moral failure
10:43 – Unpacking "church hurt" versus people hurt
16:19 – What covenant and reconciliation actually look like
23:01 – Cancel culture inside the family
39:54 – The cost of living an "all in" faith
49:41 – What happiness means to Pastor Jachin

Connect with Pastor Jachin Mullen and Home Church:
Website → myhomechurch.ca
Instagram (Pastor Jachin) → instagram.com/jachinmullen
Instagram (Home Church) → instagram.com/myhomechurch

#ChurchHurt #FaithJourney #ChristianPodcast #SpiritualGrowth #Reconciliation #PastorInterview #HomeChurch #ChristianLeadership #FaithAndCulture #TheCurrencyOfHappiness

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